


Where we used to live

by Em_Jaye



Series: The Long Way Around [3]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Roommates, Slow Burn, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 16:10:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19833760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/pseuds/Em_Jaye
Summary: Woody Allen once said, 'If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." With that in mind, Darcy had to wonder if there was anyone who could make God laugh quite like Steve Rogers.August 1970: Apartment





	Where we used to live

**Author's Note:**

> As promised, more of the time-travel au. These fics will each include a little jump in time because I do have some miles to cover to get where I need to get at any reasonable pace. This is a sloooow burn, friends, so just stick with me and hopefully enjoy a few fics about Steve and Darcy's slide into friendship before anything starts heating up. ;-P

**August 1, 1970**

The apartment was tiny. Just a small two-bedroom with views of neighboring brick walls and a water heater that allowed for five minutes of hot water each shower. There was no phone. The doors jambs were swollen, and the bathroom drawers weren’t quite even and the linoleum in the kitchen curled up in the corners.

But it was a place to live. A place that wasn’t the car or increasingly shady motels in worse and worse parts of town. It was four walls and a door that locked at the top of three flights of squeaky stairs and finally, after eight impossibly long weeks, her own room. Darcy closed her door with a giddy grin and turned the lock.

The thrill that spiraled through her at the satisfying little _click_ it made as it turned in place would have been ludicrous at any other time in her life. She looked around her small space—the closet, the dirty window with a sill wide enough for a plant or two, and absolutely no furniture.

A pillow she’d stolen from a motel in Oklahoma, a sleeping bag on loan from her new boss’ oldest daughter, and her small pile of clothes and toiletries acquired slowly and by necessity over the last two months. All she owned in the world—in _this_ world, at least—fit in one small pile on the floor beneath the window. When the landlord had asked if she and Steve would need any help moving in, she’d almost laughed in his face.

But she’d refrained, because he was a friend of June and Ray’s and he was doing them an enormous favor by letting them stay. June had been doing her a lot of enormous favors. Giving her a job, believing their story about coming down from Canada—getting out of a bad situation with just the clothes on their backs and no identification—and helping them find this place. She felt bad telling so many lies to such a sweet woman, but, as she and Steve had been reminding each other since New Jersey, they didn’t have much of a choice.

And if working extra hours at Mitchell's, the diner June and her husband owned was how Darcy could assuage her guilt, express her gratitude, _and_ keep a real roof over their heads while they kept looking for Janet or Pym—that didn’t feel like such a bad deal.

She heard footsteps outside of her door— _her door!—_ a moment before there was a knock. She unlocked it and smiled at the sight of Steve holding out a paper bag. “Hey, roomie.”

He frowned. “Did you lock your door?”

She accepted his offering and dropped the bag on the floor to remove a set of two, fluffy blue bath towels that she immediately pressed to her chest for a hug. “Yes,” she said, looking up. “Because I can! How exciting is that?” She hugged the towels again. “Thank you for these, by the way. They’re awesome.”

“You’re welcome,” he smiled. “And yes, I’m very excited to have a lock on my door as well.”

“Right?” She looked into the bag, surprised to see that Steve had also bought hand towels for the bathroom and two wrapped bars of soap. “We could just stay in our rooms all the time, doors locked, and never have to see each other.”

“I bet you say that to all the boys,” Steve commented, taking a step down the hall toward his room.

“Oh no,” she assured him, following after him. “Just you.” Steve’s room was almost the same size as hers, equally barren and with a smaller closet. June had found a sleeping bag for him, too, though he’d been using a pile of balled up clothes as a pillow. Steve, as it turned out, had no problem stealing cars, stealth jets, and secrets of corrupt government institutions, but couldn’t bring himself to steal a pillow from a small-business owner. She leaned in the doorway and watched him set down another bag with his own towels. “I think there’s a thrift store a few blocks up,” she pointed to her left. “We could check it out…y’know, if we ever wanted to sleep on something other than the floor.”

“Oh man,” Steve shook his head as he unloaded the other bag. “Locking doors _and_ furniture?” he let out a low whistle. “Easy there, little lady, you’re rushing full speed ahead into this domestication thing.”

“First of all,” she said around a laugh, “never call me that again. And second, fine, I’ll get _myself_ a bed and maybe a chair and you can sleep on the floor in here like some kind of prisoner. Sound good?”

He chuckled. “Sounds like you’re going to make me carry whatever you buy up those stairs anyway, so I don’t know why we’re pretending I have a choice.”

“If _I_ were the one infused with super muscles, I would _happily_ carry all the furniture you wanted to buy up the stairs without complaining—but that’s just not the way it worked out.”

“You would absolutely still complain about it,” Steve assured her.

She grinned. “Possibly. Anyway—I have to work tomorrow and Thursday, but depending on tips, I think I might go Friday.” She raised her eyebrows. “Come with? Be my pack mule?”

“Sure,” he shrugged easily. “I’ve gotta talk to that Walter guy tomorrow—hopefully he’ll have something for me to start on Monday.”

She nodded. “You gonna shave?” she asked.

He frowned. “I don’t know,” he said and sat back on his heels and ran a hand over the surprisingly dark beard he’d been maintaining since they’d arrived in Oakland. “Should I?”

She shrugged. “I think it looks good,” she admitted. Because it _did_. “You blend better. And it’s not like it’s an office job—I think you should leave it. Unless he says something.”

Darcy told herself this wasn’t as permanent as it sounded—these jobs, this apartment. They weren’t dropping anchor, after all, they were just surviving. Two months of homelessness had been quite enough and if they were going to stay in Oakland and keep looking for a way home, they had to have somewhere to stay. And if they were going to stay somewhere, they had to be able to pay for it and the food and supplies they’d need to continue said survival.

And there was nothing wrong with wanting an actual bed to sleep on while she was surviving, she reminded herself. All that would happen is they’d leave a partially furnished apartment behind in a few weeks and a few confused people, wondering where they went.

“You sure you’re going to be okay working construction?”

Steve looked up from his supplies. “It’s not forever,” he reminded. “Are you okay being a waitress?”

She scoffed. “Please, I can wait tables in my sleep. And, like you said,” she moved her shoulders. “It’s not forever.”

They turned the topic to something that _was_ forever: Steve’s appetite and Darcy’s love for Chinese food. They pooled a little of their remaining cash together to walk a few blocks for a small feast to celebrate their first day in this tiny apartment with its wonderful locking doors.

Her room had no curtains, so the moon shone directly onto her face as she tried to sleep. The floor wasn’t as hard to sleep on as the front seat of the Buick; she’d laid down an hour ago with heavy eyelids and an expectation of a quick descent into slumber.

But none had come. She’d waited patiently to doze off, cataloguing the creaks and clicks of the old hardwoods in her new room. The hum of cars outside and the occasional far off siren. They were on the top floor, so there was no one to hear above them, but she could make out the rise and fall of neighbor’s voices from below and she made a note to try to introduce herself in the morning.

She rolled onto her stomach with a wince as her breasts squished painfully against the thin material of the sleeping bag. She punched her pillow down and stuffed her hands beneath it, forcing herself to take a deep breath before she closed her eyes again. Sleep remained in sight, but just out of reach, no matter how hard she tried to relax.

With a frustrated groan, Darcy rolled to her back again and pushed her hair off her face. _This is ridiculous_ , she told herself before she cleared her throat. “Steve?”

“Yeah?” his response came through the wall quick enough that she didn’t have to wonder if she’d woken him.

“I can’t sleep,” she admitted, rolling her eyes at herself. “It’s too quiet.”

A pause from his room. “Are you kidding me?”

“I know,” she replied. “But this room is too empty; I can’t sleep.” She bit her lip. “Wanna have a slumber party in the living room?” she called back. “Just for tonight?”

Another pause. Longer than the first. “Weren’t you the one who couldn’t wait to lock your door and never see me again?”

Darcy smiled at the ceiling. “It wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

The walls were thin enough that she heard him shuffle and the floor creak when he stood up. She waited in near disbelief as he opened his door and then stopped at hers. She scrambled up and pulled it open to find him with his sleeping bag under his arm. He jerked his head toward their empty living room. “Only doing this tonight,” he warned her.

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t _have_ to,” she sighed. “It’s fine.”

But Steve had already left her doorway and made his way out to the front. He dropped his sleeping bag on the floor in her line of sight and looked up with a shrug. “I can’t sleep either.”

Not wasting another second, Darcy seized her pillow and sleeping bag and scurried into the living room to join him. “I promise it’ll just be for tonight,” she assured him. “Just until I get used to the sounds of the new place.”

Steve climbed back into his bag and resituated his head on his folded arms. “Whatever,” he breathed, his eyes already closed.

Darcy smiled at him in the dim light and snuggled down into her pillow. “Good night, Steve.”

She didn’t remember falling asleep, but when she opened her eyes, it was morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Come play with me on tumblr: @idontgettechnology and join me at ishipitpod.com for weekly podcast on fandom and fanfic by yours truly. 
> 
> *kisses*


End file.
